This invention relates in general to sonar sensor arrays and more specifically to a sonar sensor array in a configuration including several spaced-apart sensors at remote locations, without requiring power to be transmitted to those sensors.
Sonar sensors and sensor arrays play an important part in undersea applications of various types. In the prior art, sensors typically employed piezoelectric transducers and interferometric transducers. Both of these have limited sensitivity and dynamic range. The particular drawback of the piezoelectric transducer is a requirement for remote powering, which introduces complexity of overall design and size restrictions which limit sensitivity. An interferometric sensor requires a stable fiber optic reference. Such a reference imposes sensitivity limitations on the sonar sensor due to the signal level available to the reference from the transducer. Another limiting factor is the requirement that this reference be isolated from external influences which would affect its accuracy.